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OPINION

Article about call to abolish SWFWMD misleading

The issue is not about politics. It is about a state agency, the South West Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD, commonly called “Swiftmud”) being engaged in a 40-year mission to destroy the Skyway Trap and Skeet Club.

SWFWMD’s malicious misconduct and intentional violations of state law have nothing to do with health concerns or water pollution or lead. It is about private property rights.

SWFWMD sued under “eminent domain” to take private property and is trying to shut down a small business and private club. Court documents prove this.

Skyway Trap & Skeet Club is a private nonprofit Olympic training center and shooting range. The lead shot from previous years of shooting has been removed and the site has been cleaned up. That is an indisputable matter of record.

No lead shot has been used on the Skyway Trap & Skeet Club range for over 10 years. Only steel shot is used and steel shot is not a pollutant or hazardous substance.

Since 1947 Skyway Trap and Skeet Club has owned its property and has operated its nonprofit private range. In 1961 SWFWMD was initially established as a flood protection government agency and since then it has had a mission to shut down this private range.

In 1975, though an “eminent domain” lawsuit, SWFWMD took Skyway’s land that was used for their drop zone for shot pellets. However, the court ordered SWFWMD to give to Skyway a perpetual right and easement to continue using the property as a drop zone for shotgun ammunition.

In 2000, SWFWMD again sued Skyway, to permanently prevent any shooting on the range and to eliminate Skyway’s easement rights, claiming Skyway had polluted SWFWMD’s property. That lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice.

Skyway does nothing to pollute Sawgrass Lake. However, the water that fills this flood control lake comes from drainage ditches that funnel direct road runoff into the lake. This runoff carries everything that leaks or spills onto the roads and shoulders.

In 2004, Gov. Jeb Bush took action to stop SWFWMD’s malicious conduct and to prevent future lawsuits. SWFWMD agreed to construct a berm on the property they had taken through eminent domain to keep shot from falling on Skyway’s easement. Skyway agreed to construct a shot barrier “in conjunction with” the berm.

In 2015, in violation of state law, SWFWMD filed another lawsuit against Skyway to permanently prevent any shooting on the range, claiming Skyway is refusing to build the shot barrier.

In truth, SWFWMD has failed to construct the earthen berm properly. The berm is too short and is already degrading with sinkholes, underground tunneling and surface erosion. It is unsafe due to improper construction material and the extreme steepness of the design. One SWFWMD worker has already been killed on this unsafe berm.

Skyway would be foolish to erect a shot barrier on an incompetent, unmaintainable, eroding, unsafe, berm that is degrading day by day. The problem has been created entirely by SWFWMD. For all of this malicious conduct and more, SWFWMD deserves to be abolished.

Marion P. Hammer is past president of the National Rifle Association and current executive Ddirector of Unified Sportsmen of Florida.